Not a stupid decision. Battery life > Backlit keys. The nvidia GPU made it so they took out the backlit keys. The new iteration has no dedicated GPU hence less power draw, hence backlit keys.

The 320M is not dedicated. The 330M is, but no MBA has ever had that. The 320M is integrated into the 2010 MBA's northbridge, it's not a separate chip. The only thing special about the HD 4000 is that it's integrated into the CPU instead.

Also, backlit keyboards don't significantly affect battery life. Apple just chose not to include it, likely because of cost. For example, the base 2008 unibody Macbook didn't have a backlit keyboard but the higher end model did, but there wasn't a significant change in battery life.

The 320M is not dedicated. The 330M is, but no MBA has ever had that. The 320M is integrated into the 2010 MBA's northbridge, it's not a separate chip. The only thing special about the HD 4000 is that it's integrated into the CPU instead.

Also, backlit keyboards don't significantly affect battery life. Apple just chose not to include it, likely because of cost. For example, the base 2008 unibody Macbook didn't have a backlit keyboard but the higher end model did, but there wasn't a significant change in battery life.

Sorry I shouldn't have used the word dedicated. Point Is the nvidia drew something like 10w of power whereas the intel one doesn't draw that much.